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The German Winegrowers' Association (DWV) has sent a letter to the Federal Ministers Klöckner, Altmaier, Heil, Maas, Seehofer and Scholz asking for support for the winegrowers. The Association's President, Klaus Schneider, demands "concrete aid measures from them to counter the dramatic consequences of the Corona crisis".
The association proposes, for example, to keep the German borders open for seasonal workers and the introduction of transit regulations to enable seasonal workers to transit from Romania to Germany. In addition, the legal framework should be made more flexible. For DWV, this includes the "extension of the 70-day rule for an indefinite period of time" as well as the working time regulations. Furthermore, the association wants "an extended approval of the plant protection products Shark and Quickdown for all grape varieties as a replacement for otherwise manual breaking out work on cane shoots". In addition, there are the "safeguarding of the liquidity of the farms", the "deferral of tax payments" and "a reduction in the burden of social security contributions on the farms".
In addition, DWV calls for "consideration to be given to the introduction of wine-specific measures to reduce the economic problems of wineries in this crisis situation". According to DWV, this would involve "the inclusion of green harvesting in the list of eligible measures in the national support programme". Its aim is to reduce the yield of the area concerned to zero by completely removing unripe grapes in order to prevent non-marketable overproduction.
From the point of view of DWV, the triggering of the distillation provided for in the Wine Act in cases of crisis is also conceivable. Subsidies for the distillation of wine could "take account of the threat of market disruption in the event of a crisis".
"We are facing an unprecedented situation in which all the stops have to be pulled out to save the threatened economic existence of many wine-growing enterprises", stressed Klaus Schneider.
(uka / Photo: German Wine Institute)